struck by beauty, gripped in fright

It's the second time now that someone familiar's come aboard with a vacant expression, a drier purpose, a higher severity than even they, intrinsic, had ever shown.

Is it terrifying? Absolutely. Rarely do the unknowns, the gawping things, strike so close in with the appearance that they're right for it. Usually it's very obvious when something's wrong, wrong, wrong, and that it's reversible.

Ilia is still beautiful, is still ethereal, is perhaps better suited to the new garments than she was to a navigator's uniform.

But Christine is uncharacteristically hesitant to diagnose just how to hold her tenderly for it.